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Got my second results back...diagnosed Type 2


Brilliant thank you
 
Starshine said:
Are there any lancets that are better than others? I’m a wimp...must have used needles on thousands of patients over the years, but when it comes to me
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I do empathise. Before finding out I had raised bg I was utterly squeamish about the idea of sticking a needle into myself. In fact I used to worry in case I ever had one of the health problems that require us to self-inject. I was convinced I could never bring myself to do it. But the thought of that raised bg so panicked me, suddenly sticking a lancet into my finger seemed like almost nothing. Especially as the spring loaded "gun" does it for me. I think you're over the hump by now, but I just wanted to confirm that if you were a wimp abut lancets, there are lots more wimps here!

About re-using / changing lancets, we are divided. I personally use my lancet so long, I tend to forget that it ever has to be changed, and then after about 3 months wonder why it's hurting more than it used to! Others prefer to change every test / every week ... They are not very expensive but I couldn't face the extra faff and waste of changing frequently.
 
Hello Starshine

I like the handle you have chosen – so positive and optimistic. And so you should be.

Lots of great advice here already so I’ll try not to add too much to the noise. I was diagnosed in May at Hba1c of 66. At back at normal levels now and not quite 3 stones lighter. It’s hard at first but make a plan day by day and first and gradually absorb all the advice on here. Come back and ask questions.

I wrote a blog about my first 50 days – the link is here and you may find it helpful

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/type-2-my-first-50-days.2190/

Of course you feel guilty and ashamed – we all did. We shouldn’t, but we did because that is what the media portrayal of Type 2 conditions us to think.

But follow a plan and very soon you are going to be a very proud lady, in control of your health, getting smaller, getting some fancy new clothes for Christmas and wowing your friends and family with your achievements. But most importantly you’ll be controlling your blood sugars.

Welcome aboard Starshine – keep shining. It’s gonna be OK.
 

Aw thank you, always good to know it’s not just me!!! I think the panic comes from having to inject Clexane after having an early hip replacement 2 years ago when I was 50. I had 12 weeks of it and they came in a pre loaded syringe with needles and some of them were blunt!!!
I know it’s not the same, but it’s amazing what your mind can do in terms of putting a block there!!
Anyway, I’ve ordered my blood monitoring kit, and I will get over it! I have to...I’m secretly, extremely anxious inside wondering what my levels are all the time. When the tough gets going and all that
 

Starshine, thankfully, I have only experienced anticoagulants once in my lifetime (this far!), post hysterectomy op, and as a low risk patient, I only had those injections during my 3 days in hospital. I do however remember the ginagerous bruises the injections used to precipitate, even when executed impeccably (by staff).

The lancet finger pricking is a big nothing, once you get used to it. In a former professional life I gave thousands of injections a year, but I found it a bit different, voluntarily "stabbing" myself. I used to sit down to do it and count myself down from 5, to hit the trigger at zero,............... usually!

It's a bonkers, irrational reaction, but so incredibly common. Once you find your own way of approaching it, and find which parts of your fingers yield well and don't hurt, it's a breeze.
 
Spending a lot of time travelling can be difficult.

Hotel breakfasts, just leave the hash browns, baked beans and toast and you’ll be fine! Probably wise to also leave the sausage as sausages vary so much, when you’re buying sausages to cook at home always check the carb contents, 2 sausages vary from about 0.6g carbs to over 10! As we aim for 20-30g carbs a day in total 10g in sausages would be too many, have 2 eggs and an extra rasher of bacon instead.

Personally, hubby and me always start the day with a hearty breakfast (vary between full English, omelette, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, poached haddock and poached eggs) then don’t eat again till dinner. Steak and Salad or grilled fish and salad would be the obvious ones, ask for a pat of butter to go on your fish or steak. We have a black coffee at lunchtime and share a little bar of 85% chocolate (the mini bars, can’t remember if they are from Lidl or Aldi), if we’re at home we have double cream on the coffee, otherwise black!

Would tend to go for salad as most often even if there are fresh veg it is likely to be the three ‘worst’ carrots, peas and sweet corn.

We went out for dinner yesterday, I had a chicken skewer for a starter, hubby had garlic fried prawns, I had fillet of pork in a cream sauce with extra fried cabbage (no baby roast potatoes). There was maybe a bit of thickening in the sauce, but don’t stress too much about such things, hubby had grilled hake and a salad, no chips.

This is one of our favourite restaurants and the waiter finishes our order off for us, haha! “No chips / potatoes and a side salad, no dessert, coffee Americano”

And our last HbA1cs were identical, 29mmol/mol. But we’ve been very low carb for maybe 5 years or more! My advice is to just go very low carb from the start, the food choices become second nature and you learn to love the food you can eat! Hubby may look longingly at a pie, but I don’t think he’ll ever eat one again! I think measuring, having a smaller piece of this that or the other just makes it more difficult in the long term. ‘Cold turkey’ worked for us! Many people would disagree and aim for nearer 30g carb per meal, and eating to the meter, incorporating carb foods to a level that doesn’t spike blood glucose too much. You choose whatever works for you, but very low carb nearly always works (I think) and is more simple, in the long term.

And I’ve lost 25kg, Hubby’s lost 32kg - and we never feel deprived or hungry. We eat out often with friends and usually get the reaction, “Oh aren’t you good”, but we don’t feel like we’re being ‘good’ we just eat what we can eat, and enjoy it!
 
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AtkinsMo said:
very low carb always works (I think)
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Sadly, not always or not for everyone. I am currently eating <20g carbs daily but I have only been able to get my A1c down from 41 to 38. So for me VLC is necessary but not sufficient. I suspect this will be the case with the minority here who suffer more from insulin insufficiency than from insulin resistance. (I do realise that for people who have managed to get their A1c down from a very high level, 38 is a triumph. For me, given that 41 is not even considered pre-diabetic, and my VLC diet plus exercise, I would like to see a "normal" A1c of 31, or would settle for 34.)
 
ye
Yes, you’re right, did an edit and added ‘nearly’!
 
AtkinsMo said:
ye

Yes, you’re right, did an edit and added ‘nearly’!
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In one of her books Jenny Ruhl says that if you adopt a VLC / keto diet your bg will drop like a stone. Having read that, I think I have never quite got over the disappointment and alarm of finding that in my case it didn't / doesn't. Nothing is going to make this a happy situation, but I think it is better to be fore-warned that sometimes you put the coin in the slot but no chocolate comes out, or at least perhaps a smaller bar than you expected!
 

Alexandra - Bearing in mind it seems your blood glucose levels are in the normal range, and always have been, I don't believe there is a compelling reason to think an already normoglycaemic blood score will reduce dramatically. Where would they go to?

It is my personal (and I stress, personal) belief that each individual has a running range, in relation to their blood glucose levels and other hormones and enzymes. I also understand and accept that not all normo-glycaemic HbA1cs are in the twenties, or even close to it.

To my view, I can't see how you adding are enormously to your quality of life by wrestling with normal blood sugars to achieve super, super low scores.

Of course you will live your life in your own chosen way, just as I do mine. Whilst I'm not a believer in striving for mediocrity, I am a great believer that we each have to manage our lives to be the best person they can be, but to still live a widely varied life. whilst remaining a decent member of society. For me, that means sometimes I have to accept I will never reach my perfect aspirations.
 
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Alexandra100 said:
In one of her books Jenny Ruhl says that if you adopt a VLC / keto diet your bg will drop like a stone. Having read that, I think I have never quite got over the disappointment and alarm of finding that in my case it didn't / doesn't.
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It is my personal belief that each and everyone person has a normal range of blood sugars - normal to them personally and not necessarily the same as everyone else. This may be a running range in the 5s as a baseline, and high 6s post meal, or in the 4s to high 5s, but whichever it is, it is where their body wants them to be no matter how few carbs they eat. We can do everything possible to see figures lower than our personal normal, and fail, because these numbers would be abnormal for us. Most likely Jenny Ruhl is talking about diagnosed diabetics with very high levels, which is not you. Your numbers are and always have been in the generic normal range and likely to be your own personal range.

PS. I know you are now going to quote the pundits about truly normal levels and anything above that we are destined for heart attacks!
 
@Pipp sorry to butt in, but thank you for posting that ncl study link. I've just read it and the links within it and it's hugely helpful! Like @Starshine, I'm also newly diagnosed as T2, last week, and there's o much information out there on reversal, or not, but the study results are not only helpful, but hopeful!


@Starshine I hope all goes well for you, too. I'm doing the low carb diet, and also hoping for a reversal/remission through lifestyle change - although I know this is a lifelong change required.

My goodness, I am SO glad I found this forum and all you fantastic folk!! So much more help than my GP!
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Your numbers are and always have been in the generic normal range
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My numbers are in the WHO normal range, but in the revised US tables even 38 is already pre-diabetic. I can't help suspecting that the WHO / NHS have financial reasons for not wanting to acquire a whole lot more pre-diabetics.
 
Alexandra100 said:
My numbers are in the WHO normal range, but in the revised US tables even 38 is already pre-diabetic. I can't help suspecting that the WHO / NHS have financial reasons for not wanting to acquire a whole lot more pre-diabetics.
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Is it not also possible (even likely) that the healthcare-for-maximum-profit system of the US has financial reasons to acquire a whole lot more? Most people will see their HbA1c climb with age & yours is still in the safe range. I see you have some health issues that are associated with diabetes but they are not always caused by diabetes so I'm not sure that striving for a Bernstein & Ruhl level of perfection is necessarily helpful in your situation.
 
A very interesting point of view. I think you are probably right about this.

It looks as though - for me - that I will never achieve 38 even with carbs at 20g maximum. What is interesting is that an HB1aC of between 42 and 44 has reversed the diabetic neuropathy and macular oedema. So maybe I haven't failed because I can't get my numbers down.

It could either be that 42 to 44 is my normal or that carbs have damaged my body so much that it will take years of low carb to repair - but it is low enough to stop and reverse the damage. Other people may have to go lower to reverse the damage - other people may be ok with higher numbers. We are all so individual - there seems to be no 'one size fits all ' with diabetes.
 
Krystyna23040 said:
It could either be that 42 to 44 is my normal or that carbs have damaged my body so much that it will take years of low carb to repair
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My take on this is that we (you and I) probably produce too little insulin, due as you say to years of elevated bgs that have damaged / killed many of our beta cells. This in addition to insulin resistance. Quite a few strategies can address insulin resistance, including low carb and exercise, but all we can do for our poor beta cells is keep the carbs as low as possible in the hope of resting and reviving some of them, or at least not destroying any more.
 
Krystyna23040 said:
It could either be that 42 to 44 is my normal or that carbs have damaged my body so much that it will take years of low carb to repair - but it is low enough to stop and reverse the damage.
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I agree, like you I have certainly seen some improvement in health problems that I believe to have been caused by raised bgs. According to Dr Bernstein, some of these improvements can come quickly once we lower bgs, but others may even take years of faithful low carbing.
 
It is really good to know that we can improve things further - even if it does take years - if we keep faithfully to low carbing.
 
Yes - this is absolutely my strategy. My DN thinks that I have probably been running elevated bgs for 20+ years so I agree that my beta cells need very low carbs to revive and to avoid destroying any more. I live in hope that they will revive - or if they don't at least I have a strategy to keep them going.
 
You might like to read Dr Bernstein on the subject of possibly reversing complications:
http://www.diabetes-book.com/normal-blood-sugars/
 
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